Coffee Table

The first neighbor’s table was in Sarah’s backyard in Dallas. She wanted to get to know people. She had her dad build her a table. She had 500 people in her backyard that first summer. Her goal is to deliver tables to every state.

Everyday Joe’s has great coffee every day and a church that meets in the space on Sunday. Because it’s in the heart of Fort Collins, Colorado and because the people who are Everyday Joe’s want to serve their neighborhood, they have one of Sarah’s neighbor’s table in the middle of their space.

It’s one of the tables that Nancy and I sat at last week with Rich and Becky and Darren. We sat several times at tables with friends and remembered that we have spent some of our best times in other parts of the country sitting at tables with friends. In Maine, in Oklahoma, in Iowa, in Indiana–in lots of places and with some of you. Each time I think about a state and the faces around the table, I smile.

In church on Sunday, one reading was about Jesus eating a piece of fish on the day of the resurrection. It was a way to prove he was alive because, after all, ghosts don’t eat broiled fish. (Maybe I’m a ghost). But I’m guessing it was more. He was showing that he didn’t have hard feelings after the disciples abandoned him after their last supper together. He was doing what he’d done a couple times a day with them for the past three years. He was giving them a chance to serve him.

I think this might be a great week to sit at a table with someone and listen. We might hear Jesus.